The described subject matter relates generally to nanomaterials, and more specifically to metallic nanowires and nanofoams.
Lightweight materials are generally needed for numerous applications, including military and commercial aerospace products. Current advanced materials in broad use include superalloys, ceramic matrix composites, and intermetallics, among others. One promising class of materials includes nanomaterials such as metallic nanocellular foam (NCF) which is composed of nano-size building blocks such as nanowires. Very recently, a wet chemistry method was developed to fabricate metallic nanowires via a reduction agent of hydrazine. Though effective at reducing metals such as nickel from solution, the use of hydrazine to form in situ nanowires requires careful handling and disposal of the raw materials and process outputs particularly for scaled up systems.